Directory Listings

Directory Listings discovers entries for a business on online directories, industry associations, chamber of commerce sites, and government registries. Each listing provides independently sourced contact details, a business category, and in many cases officer names - making it a strong corroboration signal for both identity verification and industry classification.

When to use it

You want to confirm that a business has a real-world presence independently recognized by third-party sources
You are verifying a local service business, contractor, or professional services firm where directory presence is expected
You need to cross-reference contact details (address, phone, website) against the submitted application to detect impersonation
You are verifying a sole proprietor who may have no website but appears in industry-specific registries

Directory presence is sector-dependent. Local services, contractors, healthcare, legal, and professional services firms are frequently listed in directories. Digital-native and B2B businesses may have fewer listings, absence is not a risk signal for these sectors. See Sector-specific guidance in the Online Presence: Best Practices guide.

How to request it

Directory Listings is only available via POST /web_presence_requests. It is not available on POST /searches, including via Order.Enhanced. Include Order.DirectoryListing in the options array. Results are returned inline at found_directory_listings[].

{
  "name": "Hartwell Legal Group",
  "address": "73 Church St, Winder, GA 30680",
  "options": ["Order.DirectoryListing"]
}

Response fields

`found_directory_listings[]` fields

Each entry represents one business listing discovered on a directory or aggregator site.

Field	Type	Description
`source`	string	Directory domain where the listing was found (e.g., `bbb.org`, `reviews.birdeye.com`).
`url`	string	URL of the directory page that was scraped.
`category`	string \| null	Business category assigned by the directory site. Highly useful for NAICS alignment when present. `null` on sources that don't assign categories (e.g., government registries).
`business_name`	string	Business name as listed on the directory. May be a DBA rather than the registered legal name.
`phone_number`	string \| null	Phone number from the directory listing.
`email`	string \| null	Email address from the directory listing.
`business_website`	string \| null	Website URL listed on the directory page.
`address`	string \| null	Physical address from the directory listing.
`people[]`	array	Officers, principals, or key people listed on the directory page. Each entry includes `name` (required) and `title`.

Interpreting results

Directory Listings produce two types of value: presence corroboration (is this business recognized by independent third-party sources?) and identity cross-referencing (do the contact details in listings match the application?).

Cross-reference contact fields against the application. The address, phone_number, and business_website fields are independently sourced from each directory. In impersonation cases, these fields will consistently point to the real business — not the submitted application data. This is the same pattern documented for Reviews; directory data provides an additional independent source of ground truth.

Use people[] for officer cross-referencing. Officers and principals listed in directories can be cross-referenced against submitted officer_names and business.business_officers[] from the Business Search response. An officer appearing consistently across directories, the website, and Secretary of State records is a strong identity signal.

Use listing count directionally, not as a hard threshold. There is no minimum number of listings that constitutes a pass or fail. A business appearing across multiple independent directories signals an established real-world presence. Zero listings for a claimed multi-year local service business is worth noting, but not determinative.

Related guides

Online Presence: Basics — integration path decision guide and data model
Online Presence: Best Practices — full decisioning framework including directory listing signals
Online Presence: Response Reference — match values, match sources, and response shape by integration path
Industry Prediction — category in directory listings corroborates the predicted NAICS code
Web Presence API Reference — full endpoint documentation